Hacker News Reader

Comment by njx | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know why he is associated with Monsanto?

http://www.infowars.com/bill-gates-dodges-questions-on-why-h...

High yield GMO rice and wheat allows developing countries to feed themselves even when they lack ideal farming conditions.

Monsanto might be evil but it appears that Mr. Gates believes allowing people to die from starvation is a greater evil.

Yes, and then they sue the hell out of the farmers who use the seeds to grow their own crops (because you need to buy fresh from Monsanto every time).

If there's one company that is pure evil, it is this one.

No, they don't. Having studied the case histories of Monsanto, I can say with confidence that they are careful to bring cases only against farmers who they think have deliberately infringed on the patent agreements.

As a plant scientist who has studied the history of agriculture, I can tell you that since the 1950s, farmers have freely chosen to purchase seed every year from suppliers. This was initially because hybrids became the best-yielding varieties, and hybrids only keep their best characteristics for one generation ("hybrid vigour"). Now it's because licensing requires it to fund the massive R&D spend that improving crop productivity requires. For the vast majority of farmers, it makes economic sense to buy every year. It's not a trap, and they aren't idiots being fooled by "big ag".

Monsanto have done some evil things in the past when they were a different company. Now they're a pretty decent company with a terrible PR problem.

If you're on reddit, you must have like negative ten trillion karma.

I've been reading up on Monsanto recently, and I've grudgingly come to the conclusion that they aren't as bad as propaganda paints them. There's a couple of big stories that paint them as heartlessly oppressing helpless small farmers, but if you look into them further you find that they're not nearly so black-and-white.

That, and GMO as a concept is absurdly demonized. Like everything else, it needs to be done carefully and with suitable oversight, but people act like genetic engineering means "putting poison in it." As the population keeps rising and arable land keeps disappearing, we're gonna need GMO crops to keep large parts of the world from starvation.

> people act like genetic engineering means "putting poison in it."

Well, but isn't that pretty much it, in the form of pesticides? Does Monsanto do GMO that is not just roundup-readiness?

I don't know about Monsanto's product specifically, but a lot of genetic modifications aim for larger yields; greater inherent resistance to pests and/or disease; greater resistance to extremes of temperature and/or moisture; and greater concentrations of certain nutrients, among other things. There's a lot more to it than just pesticides.

And pesticides aren't exactly an optional luxury, either. People can die if an entire region's crop is eaten by locusts or aphids or caterpillars or whatever.

Coming from a farming and fishing region in Canada it seems some "city-folk" seem to think their food appears in the store via magic.

Monsanto makes two types of GM crop products.

The first, Bt crops, have the gene for a Cry protein from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis inserted so that they are toxic to the larvae of lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). The Cry protein works by aggregating into crystals in the lepidopteran larval digestive tract which then pierce the lining of the midgut, killing the larva. It doesn't affect any other animals, including us, because the crystallisation requires strong alkalinity and the presence of certain bacteria that are unique to the lepidopteran larval midgut. Bacillus thuringiensis is also widely used in organic certified agriculture. So no, this isn't poison.

The second are glyphosate resistant plants. These have a bacterial form of the ESPS gene inserted that doesn't get inhibited by glyphosate. We ingest many different forms of the ESPS gene every day - it's in basically every organism - and it's harmless. Glyphosate is one of the most harmless pesticides ever invented, which is precisely why resistance is desirable. Using glyphosate means we don't have to use the much more harmful pesticides we used to use. So no, this isn't poison.

In summary: no, it's not poison.

I would still consider things that are designed to kill moths and herbs to be poison, conceptually - especially in contrast to GM crop that is designed to be bigger/healthier/more resistant to weather/quicker to grow. I don't think people would be as skeptical towards the latter group.

That's a good technical point about the vocabulary - it's poisonous but to very specific species. I should have said not poisonous to humans.

Regardless of how people feel, the need to use toxic pesticides and insecticides are a huge problem in agriculture and Roundup-ready and Bt crops tackle those problems.

Next-generation GM crops will be much more geared towards disease and salt/drought stress resistance.

I don't know if it is Monsanto or another company, but I read recently that GMO companies have given away a lot of innovations over the years. People have to remember that most of the people working for these big orgs want their work to mean something and do good for the world. Feeding the worlds poor with better crops is far up there along the 'doing good' scale.

Who better to help feed the world's hungry than a giant ag company?

Because he has a great team of advisers who understand plant molecular biology and are betting on Monsanto's technology playing a role in future food security.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com